The Brothers of Gwynedd

  It was a calm and quiet going, altogether seemly. It would have been a violation to make any outcry of grief or protest. The Lady Senena with a steady hand drew a kerchief over her daughter's face, and then those two women rose up and sent the men out of the room, closing the door against us, and presently there was running of maidservants with water and cloths, and an ordered and reverent bustle in which we had no part.

  And now that his wife was well asleep, Rhys Fychan also consented without murmur to sleep, and Llewelyn saw him to his bed, for he had not closed an eye since the lady miscarried. Like one stunned he fell, and with the semblance of another death he slept.

  David came forth with the rest, grave and silent, moving as though he walked in a dream. He drew me away with him to find a corner where we should be in no one's way, and a brychan to stretch out on side by side. He seemed more in wonder and awe than in sorrow, for in truth he had never been so close to death before except in the hot blood and impersonal clashes of battle. He lay on his belly among the furs beside me, his chin in his hands, and stared with wide eyes the way his sister was gone. He was still dusty and soiled from the long ride, and pale in reflection of her pallor, and he looked less than his years then.

  "I had not thought," he said, "that it could be so gentle. But we have seen only the close, and perhaps even for her it was not all easy and without pain. I have always thought of death as the settlement of a debt—of all the debts in a lifetime. Though truly her account might well be very light and easy to pay. What harm, what wrong, did she ever do to any? Every one by the same narrow door, my brother says." He smiled. "I can well see him, when his time comes, riding boldly up and knocking, and the gates will fly open and let him in destrier and all. Me, I doubt not, death will cram piecemeal through the bars of a closed wicket, a long and bloody business."

  I hated to hear him talk so, all the more as this was not said in the black mood that sometimes visited him, but deliberately and with grave thought. And I told him roughly not to be a fool, for he had no more on his conscience than most of us and, moreover, was insistent upon paying his debts as he went, so that he might well find the door open and the record clean when he came. Which would be forty good years yet, I said, to add to his present five-and-twenty.

  He looked into me and through me with his dark and lustrous smile, and said: "You little know what I have in my mind sometimes, and I would never have you know. But God keeps the tally." And then he said, in the same considering tone, like one earnest to find exact truth in confession, and more concerned with truth than with contrition itself: "Samson, I am afraid of death."

  And though he said it with an even voice and unblinking eyes, like a man measuring the odds and choosing his ground before a battle, with no intent of giving back or avoiding, yet my heart lurched in me, knowing past doubt that he spoke the truth. So I reached and jerked his palms from under his chin, and pulled him down with me into the hides of the brychan, and he uttered something between a laugh and a sigh, and lay where I had tumbled him, with his forehead in the hollow of my shoulder. And so, presently, he slept.

  The castle of Carreg Cennen lay in mourning, and the Lady Gladys, waxen-white like a fine candle and frozen into such distant beauty that nothing of her remained ours, was laid in her coffin. Rhys Fychan arose from his long, deathly sleep refreshed and able to live again, made himself finer than usual in her honour, and took his eldest son by the hand to show him the last of the earthly part of his mother. The boy was twelve years old, in reason somewhat older, being bright and forward of understanding, and he went gravely to the lady's side and kissed her on the forehead in farewell, though the cold of her stung him into fright for a moment, and he clung hard to his father's hand. The younger ones stayed with their nurse, and she told them what all nurses tell their charges when it is certain they will see their mothers no more. But what that is I never enquired.

  In this matter of the children David was at his best, for he had kept enough of his own boyhood, when the dark mood was not on him, to make him the most acceptable of us all to such tender creatures, and his play with them was worth a legion to that sorrowful household. So we passed not too painfully through the time of the lady's burial, for which Rhodri arrived just in time, and inclined to feel aggrieved at finding his sister had not waited to take leave of him. We took her to the abbey of Talley, and there she sleeps, we trust, in peace, for she was a good daughter, a loyal and loving wife, a devoted mother, as witness the honour her lord paid to her memory.

  Afterwards, when we sat all together in hall in Carreg Cennen, with the whole household below us, and the business of life not so much waiting to be resumed as continuing in indifference to mortal comings and goings, then we took up the duties and anxieties we had laid by for a moment. For the rites of burial are designed less to lay the dead to rest than to set the living in motion again, there being no release from the world short of death.

  On the eve of our departure the Lady Senena, who had spent her time mainly with the women and children, and had kept Cristin close about her ever since the two of them had tended the dead together, said to Rhys Fychan at table in the hall:

  "There is a request I have to make of you, dear son, that I think you will not refuse me. For my dead daughter's sake, let me have her waiting-woman and take her into my own service. I should like to have by me for the rest of my days one who was so close and kind with Gladys."

  I think Rhys Fychan was not greatly surprised at this. But to me this speech came like lightning out of a clear sky, stopping the breath in my throat for desire and dread. And I looked down to the place where Cristin sat with Godred beside her, and found her looking fixedly upon me, though she was far out of earshot. Our eyes met in that look I had been avoiding hour by hour and moment by moment among the teeming hundreds of the castle, using the very stables and mews, and such places as the women seldom frequented, as shelter from the pain of beholding her. Sombrely and straightly she looked into my face, and it was I who first turned my eyes away.

  Rhys said readily: "I shall be happy to content you, mother, in anything within my power. If Cristin is willing to go with you, it might be best for her, for of late years her lady has been like a sister to her, and she will feel her loss sadly. You know what risks she once took for Gladys, and what reason we have for valuing her highly. But there's her husband to be thought of, too."

  "David will find a place for him in his own bodyguard," said the Lady Senena firmly. "We have truce now in Wales, but even if you should find a need for armed men, you have only to send to Gwynedd to get both Godred and whatever more you need."

  David, hearing his name, leaned along the table to enquire what was said of him, and she told him, as one taking consent for granted. For one moment he was mute, and his eyes opened a little wider, and flashed one sword-blue glance at me before they looked within, consulting that secret vision he enjoyed, or suffered, in the confines of his mind. A closed world he had there, intricately furnished with good intents that went hand in hand with impulses of malice and mischief, and reckless elations that held up mirrors to forebodings of black intensity.

  "Why not?" he said with deliberation, and smiled upon whatever it was he saw within that private room. "I'll gladly find a place for a good knight, if he says yes to it. And my mother will cherish Cristin. So will we all," he said, and his smile turned outward towards us, and became human and sweet. But he did not look again at me.

  "We'll put it to the pair of them," said Rhys Fychan, "and they may choose whether they wish to go or stay."

  So after we left the hall he sent for them to come into the great chamber, where the family sat retired with the cooling embers of their grief on this last evening. And it was David who did the messenger's part and went to bring them.

  They came in side by side, but not with linked hands or in any way touching each other. Only once before had I seen them so close, and closer still, when he opened his arms to her in the narrow inner ward of Dolwyddelan castle, and
she walked into their embrace with her eyes fixed ever over his shoulder, upon me standing distant and helpless, and never looked away until he stooped his head to kiss her, and then she closed her eyes, to see nothing more. Now they stood before their lord and mine, and waited with mild enquiry to hear what was required of them. He so fair, and agile, and fine, with that smooth and comely face ever ready for smiling, and she so dark and still and erect, seeming taller than she was by reason of her willowslenderness. She had the bright, white skin that white flowers have, and hair as black as her lady's, but without the blue, steely sheen, and its raven silk was bound up then in a net of silver filigree. A wide, brooding mouth she had, wonderful, dark red as any rose, and eyes like running water over a bed of amethysts, now deep grey, now iris-purple. At this and every face-to-face meeting with her in my life I sought in vain for words to define what she was, and found none exact enough. But still I do not know, after all these years, whether what she had should be called beauty, or whether it bore by rights some other and rarer name.

  Rhys Fychan bade them sit, and offered wine. She accepted the stool, but not the cup, and sat with such braced and attentive stillness that I knew she was not privy to this proposition, and did not know what was coming. Godred took what was offered. It would always be his instinct, as bees never say no to open flowers.

  Rhys Fychan told them what was proposed. Godred was taken by surprise, but his life was an easy stream of surprises, most of which he welcomed. His brows went up, and his brown eyes rounded. It was not hard to see the wheels of his mind working busily upon the chances. David was brother to the prince of Wales and close to the seat of power, and there was glory and diversity and profit to be had around him. Why not? It was a fair enough estimate, and he had a right to pursue his own interest where no other person's was threatened. I did not blame him.

  "I am at my lord's disposal and at my prince's command," said Godred at his most melodious, "to serve wherever I best may. But this choice is for my wife to make, since it is her service that is so kindly desired by the lady of Gwynedd. With Cristin's decision I will go."

  "Well, child?" said the Lady Senena, with her knotted, elderly hands quite easy in her lap, never doubting to have her own way. "Will you come into the north with me? You shall be chief among my women, if you will."

  Cristin sat motionless and silent for a long moment, looking at her with wide eyes and parted lips, while it seemed that she hesitated what to answer. Then in a low, clear voice she said: "Madam, I rejoice in the honour you do me, and am grateful that you so value whatever service I have been able to do for my lady, who is dead. Such service as I may I will do also for you, lifelong. Yes, I will go with you to Gwynedd."

  "Then I also consent," said Godred heartily. "If my lord grants me leave, I will enter the Lord David's service."

  Pleased at gaining her wish, the Lady Senena begged Cristin to put her belongings in order in time to ride with the party the next day, and offered the help of one of her maids to pack those possessions which could follow more slowly. Godred, too, had much to see to, if he was to accompany us, and so they went away to make their preparations. I, who had stood withdrawn all this time, having no part to play in the matter, whatever my longings and fears might be, remained still as they passed me in leaving the high chamber, and willed not to be noticed by word or look. Cristin went by me with a fixed and resolute face, from which even the tremor of surprise and wonder was gone, a marble face. It was Godred who flashed me a jubilant smile and a sidelong gleam, as one confident of an intimate friend who must share his pleasure.

  "Good!" said David, when the door had closed after them. So that is settled

  to everyone's satisfaction." And he looked at me, and slowly smiled his dark, secret smile.

  Late in the evening I went about the copying, for Rhys Fychan, of certain small legal agreements of which he required English versions, until I was called away from the work by a page bringing me a message from David, who desired me to come to him in the store-room where were the linen-presses and chests belonging to the Lady Gladys. There was no occasion for me to pass through the great hall, where half the household was already sleeping. I went instead by the stone passage, dimly lit by a few smoky torches, and so into the antechamber of the room where the Lady Gladys had died, and by the curtained door into her store-room. Though what David could be doing there, or what he could want with me at this hour, I found hard to guess.

  The light there was from two candles in a sconce on the wall, and no brighter than in the passage, yet bright enough to show that the figure bending over an open chest was not David. Nor was there time to withdraw unnoticed, for I had swung the curtain aside without any care to be silent, and as I entered the room she had heard me, and straightened and turned, without alarm, to see who it was who came. She chilled into perfect stillness. The hands a little outspread above the folded gowns in the chest hung motionless, every finger taut. The candles were slightly behind her, and her face was in shadow, yet I felt the burning darkness of her eyes fending me off. So I knew that she had had no part in this, that it was David who had done it to both of us.

  It was not my own pain that caused me to draw back from her, it was rather the clear intimation of hers. Time that had done nothing to comfort me had brought her no comfort. In that moment I hated and cursed my breast-brother for his arrogance in meddling with us. And I said, through lips so stiff I could barely speak:

  "I ask your pardon! I have been called here mistakenly. I had not meant to intrude on you." And with that I turned from her, with what an effort I cannot express, and groped my way to the doorway.

  I saw her stir out of her marble stillness just as I swung about and grasped at the curtain. Behind me she said sharply: "Samson!" And when that word halted me with the latch in my hand: "No, do not go!" she said, in a gentler tone.

  I turned about, and she had come a step towards me, and the ice had melted out of her flesh and bones, and it was a live, warm creature who stood gazing at me. "Come in," she said, "and close the door."

  "To what purpose?" I said. "This was none of my seeking. David sent for me here." And that was a coward's word if ever there was, but I was angry with him for daring to play God's part with us, and so wrung that I did not know whether it was mistaken affection for us both that moved him, or pure black mischief, to provide himself with entertainment, now that his sport in fighting was taken from him.

  But Cristin said: "David can be very wise. Even very kind. Do you think I do not know you have been avoiding me all these days? All these years! What profit is there in that, since you cannot avoid me for ever? It was time to resolve it. How much of this silence and pretence and avoidance do you think my heart can bear? In the name of God, are we not grown man and woman, able to hold whatever God fills us with? If I am to come north, as I have chosen to do, what future is there for us, if we cannot meet like ordinary human creatures, treat each other with consideration, do our work side by side without constraint?"

  In the course of these words all that was ice had become a gradual and glowing fire, and she was as I had known her in the beginning, so gallant and so dear, the heart failed, beholding her. I stood mute in my anguish and my bliss, helpless before her.

  She took one more step towards me, since I would not go to her, and now she had but to reach a hand a little before her to flatten it against my heart and feel how it thundered, with what desire and despair. And I but to stretch out my arms and gather her like a sheaf in the harvest, but that her troth and mine lay between us like iron bars. Her face was turned up to me, earnestly searching me. I never knew her to use any wiles upon me or any other. She had her own proud and purposeful chivalry. When she opened her eyes wide, thus, and poured their wit and intelligence and enquiry into me, she also let me in to the deep places of her own nature, and gave me the courage to enter there.

  She said: "Why did you turn away from me at Dolwyddelan, and leave me without a word of farewell, after all we had done and kno
wn together? You had no right!"

  I said: "For reason enough. I had no right to stay. You are my brother's wife. You knew it before ever I did. You saw the ring I had from my mother, the fellow to his."

  She moved neither towards me nor away, but held her place. Her eloquent and generous mouth lengthened and quivered, and her eyes darkened into iris-purple. In a slow, hard voice, just above her breath, she said: "Tell me the truth! Is that all I am?"

  By what wisdom of David or mercy of God I do not know, in that moment my heart opened like a flower that has long been bound by frost, as if the sun had come out to warm me, and the rain to water me. I saw her mine and not mine, neither to be taken nor left, by reason of the barrier of duty and faith, by reason of the bond of love and worship. As I was bound not to despoil, so I was bound not to forsake. And I had done ill all this while, in depriving her and myself of what was ours and wronged no man.

  I never touched or troubled or enticed her, but stood to face her as she stood to face me, God seeing us. I said, with all my heart and mind and soul: "You are my love, the first one, the only one, the last one I shall ever know. I have loved you from the first night ever I knew you, before I knew if you were maid or wife. I loved you then without guilt or shame, and so I love you now, and shall lifelong. There will never be any change in me. To the day of my death I shall love you."